Bill McKibben Is Keynote for Tunxis Economic Conference

"Since most Americans receive their higher education at community colleges, they are essential to getting across the message that prosperity and indeed survival in the future depend on understanding the perilous state of our environment, and the long list of new ideas that could save it," wrote Bill McKibben, who will be the keynote speaker at the 22nd Annual Economic Conference of Tunxis Community College Foundation and Advisory Board, Inc. on Friday, November 15 from 8-10 a.m. at the Hartford Marriott/ Farmington. Breakfast will be served at 8 a.m.

An internationally-recognized author on economic prosperity and environmental policies, McKibben will speak on "The Connection Between Environmental Policies and Economic Prosperity."

McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, the first book for a general audience about global warming which has been translated into 20 languages, and recently released in a 10th anniversary edition. He has written a number of other books on culture and the environment including The Age of Missing Information; Hope, Human and Wild; Maybe One; and Long Distance. His next book, an examination of human genetic engineering and other emerging technologies, titled Enough, is to be published by Times Books in spring 2003.

A former staff writer for The New Yorker, McKibben's work appears regularly in the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, New York Review of Books, Natural History and Outside, among others. The recipient of Lyndhurst and Guggenheim Fellowships, he won the 2000 Lannan Prize for Nonfiction Writing.

McKibben is currently a visiting scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT, and a longtime resident of the Adirondacks. Prior to his arrival at the College, he was a fellow at Center for the Study of Values in Public Life of Harvard University's Divinity School. He graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in government and received honorary degrees from St. Lawrence University, Green Mountain College, and Lebanon Valley College.

A tax-deductible donation is requested; proceeds will fund Tunxis student scholarships. Call 860-679-9526 to make reservations by November 5.